


Getting Back on Track

by fannishliss



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Sentinel
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crossover, International Fanworks Day 2017, M/M, Matt Murdock is a Sentinel, Post-Season/Series 02, Reconciliation, not Defenders compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-09-24 21:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9788909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: Surprise visitors reveal something they have something in common with Matt and Foggy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter was originally written to celebrate International Fanworks Day 2017 (Feb 15). Ao3 prompted to write a short fic that has some of your favorite characters being fannish about some of your other favorite characters: a perfect opportunity for Blair Sandburg to geek out over Matt Murdock being a Sentinel! :D

  
  
Matt was in his office trying to occupy his mind with the details of a pro bono eviction case when he heard a couple coming up the stairs: two men, both middle-aged but fit.

 

“Don’t go all Neanderthal this time, Jim, I’m begging you here.”

 

“You wound me, Chief.  By now don’t you think I’m secure in who I am?”

 

“Sure -- but old habits die hard.”

 

“Then you better make sure you keep it in your pants, and wipe that drool off your chin.”

 

“Jim!  Come on, man, this is purely professional.”

 

The door to the suite swung open and the two men came in.

 

Matt felt a creeping sensation he could only describe as hackles rising from the top of his head all down his spine. He rose to his feet but couldn’t bring himself to offer his hand to the men.

 

“Hey, there. You’re Matt Murdock?” the shorter man asked.

 

The taller man was staring at him.

 

The shorter one seemed so familiar somehow.

 

“Yes, and you are?” Matt asked.

 

“I’m sorry, my name is Blair Sandburg.  This is my partner, Jim Ellison.”

 

“How can I help you?” Matt asked. They were from out of town -- maybe the Pacific coast?  And they were definitely a couple.  Maybe they somehow thought they needed legal assistance to get hitched in the Big Apple?

 

“The question is, how can we help you!” the shorter guy, Sandburg, said, bouncing on his toes.

 

“Excuse me?” Matt said.  He leaned forward a little, bracing his hands far apart on his desk -- a position of strength in case the men were thinking of taking advantage of the blind man.

 

“Ha, ha, this never gets any easier,” Sandburg muttered nervously.

 

“Spit it out, Chief,” Ellison said.  He stood like a pillar, looming over the shoulder of his partner -- not overtly hostile, but certainly a potential threat.

 

“We saw that vid -- the one that went viral, you taking down the cops,” Sandburg said.  “Before the, ah, horns.”

 

“Armor,” Ellison said.  “Smart.  I like the horns, very eye-catching.”

 

“I’m not sure what you mean?” Matt said, keeping cool.  “I don’t watch a lot of videos…” he said, waving at his glasses.

 

Sandburg leaned in and whispered dramatically, “You’re the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen!’”

 

Matt frowned.  “Um, no?” But their hearts were steady.  They thought they had him.

 

“Blair, the point….” Ellison nudged.

 

“Of course!  Thanks, Jim, we flew all the way to New York City from Cascade, Washington, and I’m going to forget to get to the point.  The point is, Matt Murdock, you’re a Sentinel.”

 

Matt shook his head.  “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is… and I’m certainly not Daredevil.  Unless you’re looking for legal services, I won’t be of much help to you.”

 

“That’s what I’m saying, man!  We’re here to help you!” Sandburg was irrepressible.

 

“I don’t think… “ Matt began.

 

“Blair, maybe cut to the chase,” Ellison suggested.

 

Sandburg heaved a sigh.  “Okay, first of all, your fighting style is a dead giveaway.  A man whose eyes are obscured behind a black mask may not be blind -- but you have three-hundred-sixty degree awareness.  You can ‘see’ behind, above, and beneath you as well as straight ahead.  And, you tilt your head in a way that suggests echo-location.”

 

“The feet,” Ellison prompted.

 

“Yes! Most MMA fighters are light on their feet-- but you take every opportunity to plant both feet firmly.  Jim does the same thing -- to feel the vibrations through the surface you’re standing on.”

 

Matt felt his mouth drop open in shock.  He’d never told anyone about his feet -- not Foggy, not Elektra, not even Stick.

 

“What do you want?” he asked.

 

“Nothing,” Blair said. “Just, you know, we wanted to welcome you and your Guide to the club. Give you some pointers.  Warn you about rogue Sentinels.  That sort of thing.”

“Rogue Sentinels?” Matt asked.

 

“Sentinels --like you and Jim -- have extremely heightened senses, along with a strong instinctive urge to protect and defend your chosen territory.   Rogues-- they don’t settle down into a territory, and they can go pretty far off the rails, especially without a Guide.”

 

“What’s a Guide?” Matt asked, trying not to think too hard about going off the rails.

 

“Sidekick,” Ellison coughed, and even though facial expressions were not his strong point, Matt could see Ellison’s bright grin clearly.

 

“The sensory input can be a lot to handle,” Sandburg said, with exaggerated patience, “so the Guide helps the Sentinel stay focused. The Guide greatly improves the Sentinel’s quality of life, wouldn’t you agree, Jim.”

 

“Absolutely,” Jim said, sincerity dripping from his voice.

 

“So,” Blair said.  “Maybe we have a few beers, maybe trade a few tales about fighting crime with heightened senses, hm?”

 

Matt held still for a moment, searching out the two strangers.  Neither gave any hint of duplicity. They smelled like each other.  They’d shared a number of meals.  They stood within each other’s intimate radius.  Ellison’s big hands seemed to gravitate toward Blair’s shoulders.  And strangest of all, so naturally that Matt hadn’t even noticed, their hearts beat calmly in tandem.

 

“I maybe could tell a tale or two,” Matt said slowly.  “But I need to call someone first.  Please don’t listen in.”

 

“Sure,” Ellison said, and Blair nodded.

 

“Make yourselves comfortable -- I’ll only be a moment.”

 

Matt walked down into the street, into the chilly air of early spring.  The wind blew moist with fresh promise.  “Call Foggy,” Matt told his phone, hoping it was never too late to get back on track.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The actors who play Jim and Blair are now (in 2017) 58 and 47 respectively.  Richard Burgi is getting plenty of work -- he was recently a serial killer on General Hospital!  Garrett Maggart is married and had a kid in 2015.  :) Weird facts that never cease to amaze: Garrett Maggart is what I refer to as a "racehorse" -- that is, his parents were both entertainers. So it's no surprise that his half sister is Fiona Apple, who incidentally looks just like him.  I also adore the vocal stylings of another Maggart sibling, Maude Maggart.  Here is a fantastic duet featuring Fiona and Maude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhaFS6ql6Vo  
>  :D  What I recently found out is that Richard Burgi is also something of a racehorse!  His parents were musicians, and his brother, Chuck Burgi, is a drummer for Billy Joel!!  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I wanted to make sure i had something to say before I started expanding the story, and also, I wanted to watch some of Iron Fist (which I am loving!) in case Foggy showed up. Anyway, here is chapter two. So much angst! They'll get there.

Matt never thought the day would come when he’d need an appointment to hang out with his best friend. 

 

Of course, he never thought the day would come when “best friends” no longer really applied to himself and Foggy. 

 

In fact, he wasn’t really sure where he stood with Foggy these days, which, to be honest, sucked. This couldn’t even be called by any stretch of the imagination, “hanging out.” Matt was waiting, while Foggy finished his work.And Matt couldn’t even hear Foggy properly, because there was a white noise generator sitting on the floor under the windows, mimicking the sound of waves crashing on the shore.It had already gone through thundering rainstorm, and as Matt listened, it switched over to wind blowing through the forest.Foggy's heart beat was neatly obscured, and Matt wondered who had installed the device, but Foggy didn’t mention it. 

 

The clock on the wall was a classy analog item, oversized, with the hours marked out in arms that hovered independently against the wall, and a minute hand that snapped into place with a loud and obnoxious tock.Matt would have murdered the thing with a shoe within the first couple of hours.But this was Foggy’s place, decorated for him by HCB, and he didn’t seem to notice as the minutes ticked by.The Thai food Matt had picked up for him from their favorite place had grown cold, half-eaten and congealed, as Foggy worked through his assignment.Whatever Hogarth had given him to do, Foggy didn’t share, only that “this has to be on her desk first thing tomorrow, Matt, no excuses,” and Matt had to accept that, because he was the one who had let Foggy down, who’d tried to make excuses when he hadn’t come through. 

 

Matt was the one who had driven Foggy away from their partnership.Matt was the one who had ditched Foggy too many times. Matt could tell himself that his motives were pure; that the City needed him; that the distance between Matt and his best friend was the best chance of keeping Foggy safe — but he knew it was all bullshit. 

 

Matt had always known the day would come when Foggy would leave him, and Matt had finally hastened the day, nothing more or less than a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

 

Foggy didn’t make him sit in the waiting room, but Matt maybe wished he would have.At least the waiting room had a comfy sofa, whereas all Foggy’s office had were desk chairs, junior partner or not. Foggy worked for Hogarth now; she’d snapped Foggy up for criminal defense, her division of the firm, and Foggy, as Matt well knew, was damn good at it.Matt had always known that Foggy’s talents were, maybe not absolutely wasted, but at least, not allowed their full rein at Nelson and Murdock. A lawyer of Foggy’s caliber doing title searches, landlord/tenant cases, even divorce or custody proceedings, was a crime against nature. Foggy was meant for the criminal court, ferreting out the evidence, building the case, explaining the law to the jury in that sweet-natured, common-sensical tone that had every man and woman eating from his hand, never a clue that behind Foggy’s folksy and pleasant exterior lay a mind like a steel trap, as sharp and exacting as any big firm New York attorney you could ask for. 

 

Hogarth had seen all that in Foggy after only one trial and the turbocharged disaster that had been Frank Castle.Matt had known it for years.Matt’s admiration for Foggy wasn’t just that Foggy was nice, kind, thoughtful, funny, or even that he smelled good.Foggy was all of those things.But he was also brilliant.His instinct for the law was without question, first rate.Graduating Columbia cum laude and getting in the door at L&Z was no accident.Foggy was a hell of an attorney, and Matt had been privileged to work beside him for as long as it had lasted. 

 

Now, Hogarth had him, and that meant Foggy was working real attorney hours for the first time since he and Matt had walked out of L&Z with a file box full of day old bagels. Foggy could no longer just cut out early and saunter in or out whenever he pleased. Foggy’s time was now measured in tenths of a very expensive hour, and Matt would just have to wait until Foggy’s appointed tasks were completed for the day. 

 

Matt slowed his breathing and listened to his own heartbeat, slow and steady, strong and even, trying to let it drown out the thick fog of white noice and the raucous ticking of Hogarth’s clock.Matt’s heart sounded great, not even close to broken.This close to Foggy, and Matt seemed fine.Matt’s ability to lie to himself extended even as far as his own physiology. 

 

The passage of time finally blurred as Matt counted his heartbeats, calm and slow.He deepened his breath, sending oxygen to all the little hurts his body was trying to mend.At least he wasn’t starving.With Elektra’s bequest (stock holdings, cash, and real estate, including both the buildings where he lived and worked), Matt didn’t really need to work any more.He was sitting pretty on just the rents alone.But it felt like a slap in the face to all the hard work he’d put in, to become an attorney and then not practice.He did most of his work pro bono these days, but without Foggy and Karen, the clients didn’t pour in like they once had.Matt had enough to occupy himself, but nothing so involved that it impacted his nightlife. What he was no longer accomplishing as an attorney, he liked to think he was getting done as Daredevil. He tried notto think too hard about whether he was lying to himself. 

 

Matt was as calm as he was ever going to get, so he let the problem float slowly into his mind, the new problem of Sandburg and Ellison, with their bombshell about how his abilities supposedly fit into a larger picture. 

 

Ellison had easily proven his own abilities as a so-called Sentinel.He could hear things only Matt could hear,taste and smell the tiniest quantities, sort things by feel just the same as Matt did.But the kicker was Sandburg, the Guide, whose presence transformed Ellison’s abilities from a curse into a tool more easily managed than Matt had ever dreamed. 

 

So Matt was here, in Foggy’s office, waiting for Foggy to finish the interminable document lawyers drily referred to as a “brief.” Hogarth wanted it on her desk first thing in the morning, and Foggy would deliver.So Matt kept quiet, breathing, heart beating, waiting on Foggy’s convenience. 

 

Matt’s meditation worked so well that he was almost startled when Foggy finally leaned back in his chair and stretched his shoulders with a groan. 

 

“Done?” Matt said. 

 

“Drafted,” Foggy said.“Hogarth is a taskmaster, man.You think Perkins was bad with red ink.She actually prints the damn things out and slaps them down on my desk, bleeding like stuck ducks. Plus, the timeframe is insane. Practically every little thing is next day deadline.” 

 

“I guess if she makes you do it over every time, the quick turnaround is a necessity.” 

 

“Yeah,” Foggy sighed. “Yeah, I mean, I’m not actually complaining, okay?This is the kind of work we should have been doing at L&Z.She brought me in as a junior partner but she’s putting me through the ringer. It’s kind of exhilarating, to be honest.” 

 

Matt’s face pulled something, but he wasn’t exactly sure whether it was a smile or a grimace.“Good, Fog. That sounds good.You’ll be a named partner before you know it.” 

 

Matt heard Foggy shaking his head, but Foggy didn’t narrate it. Those days were gone.“Maybe. Anyhow.” 

 

“Um, so,” Matt started awkwardly. 

 

“Um? So?” Foggy echoed. “What fresh hell is it this time, Matt?” 

 

Foggy had never in their long history been this impatient with Matt.Matt had never realized how much he depended on Foggy’s good humor.He’d appreciated the sting of Foggy’s cutting wit and the razor edge of Foggy’s high standards and expectations, but never before directed so cuttingly at Matt himself. 

 

Matt coughed, trying to figure out the best way to start.Start at the beginning.Okay. 

 

“Two men came to the office today and they knew about… everything.” 

 

Foggy’s eyes widened and he let out a breath.He waited, but Matt didn’t go on. After a pause, he sighed.“Matt, this is Hogarth Chao and Benowitz.Anything you say in this office is strictly confidential.The place is swept for bugs on a weekly basis by several different security firms on a rotating schedule. This is the last place you need to worry about your little secret.” 

 

Matt nodded tightly. He’d thought Foggy would be more alarmed that strangers had found him out, but apparently not. “Okay. Well.Apparently I’m not the only one out there with heightened senses.Supposedly it’s a genetic advantage that crops up in crimefighters reasonably often.” 

 

“I thought your senses were heightened by the chemical spill,” Foggy said calmly. 

 

“Apparently not,” Matt said, feeling lame. Sandburg had talked a mile a minute, overturning everything Matt thought he understood about himself in the space of half an hour. “Apparently, the senses can lie dormant until they’re triggered by some traumatic event, and that’s what happened to me.” 

 

“Who said all this and how do they know about it?” Foggy asked. 

 

“Two guys from Cascade, Washington.One is a retired cop, and the other is an independent scholar of Anthropology,” Matt said.Matt had googled them after they left his office. Ellison had taken an early retirement instead of a desk job in his late forties, after his father had left him a sizable fortune.Sandburg had a lower public profile, but Matt had found a few papers by him in academic indices.“The cop, Jim Ellison — his partner calls him a Sentinel. He has five heightened senses— almost as good as mine.” 

 

“How are his backflips and fisticuffs?” Foggy said bitterly. 

 

Matt cringed at Foggy’s tone, but forged ahead. “He was a highly decorated detective in Major Crimes with a hell of a closure rate. Sandburg, that’s his partner, worked with him in an advisory capacity, as what they call a Guide.”

 

Foggy sighed again, and spun his chair slightly.It was a tell, a little habit he had when there was something unpleasant to do that he couldn’t get out of.“So? What’s your angle, Matt? Why are you telling me this?”

 

A physical pain grabbed Matt by the throat.It was nothing new, just the tell tale ache of held-back tears, a sensation Matt had long been familiar with. 

 

“No angle, Foggy, I just — “ 

 

“Matt, cut the crap.You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want something.” 

 

Foggy sounded so tired, so fed up.Matt had driven him out of their shared practice, and told himself he could let Foggy go, that it was for the best.But as always, Matt was full of shit.He couldn’t stand the thought of really letting Foggy go.He kept up with Foggy’s cases.He listened, from a distance, to Foggy’s daily routine before and after work.He didn’t invade Foggy’s space, or tried not to, but he kept tabs on his former best friend.More than once he’d fallen asleep on a rooftop not too far from Foggy’s new place, lulled into rest by the sound of Foggy’s heart. 

 

“Why the social call, Matt? What are these guys up to— is it blackmail? Are they threatening to expose you? I’d have to recuse myself, but HCB handles this type of thing…” 

 

“No, Foggy.No.It’s not blackmail.I honestly think they’re just trying to reach out.Sandburg, the Guide, the anthropologist, he’s trying to set up a network of people like us. Some only have one or two heightened senses, but when it’s all five, it can lead to a lot of problems for people.” 

 

“No shit,” Foggy said. “So, what, they want you to join this network? You’re not going to do it, are you?” 

 

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Matt said. 

 

“Why?” 

 

“I want your advice,” Matt said. 

 

“Lie,” Foggy accused. 

 

“Wh- what?” Matt stuttered. 

 

“Not so great when the tables are turned, hm?” Foggy muttered.“Matt, do you honestly think I don’t know your lie face by now? Now, spill, the truth, or get out of my office, I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

 

“Okay.Okay.” Matt tried to catch his breath.“Two things.One, they think they might be able to help me find my mom.Two, they say you’re my Guide, and that without you in my life I’m putting my sanity at risk.” 

 

Foggy froze.He seemed to be actually holding his breath. Matt still couldn’t heart his heartbeat against the sound of crashing surf and the ticking of the clock.Outside, sirens wailed on the street below, forcing Matt to pull back his hearing and leave Foggy his privacy. 

 

“Your Guide? It’s what, some kind of advisor?” 

 

Matt was actually sweating now.Foggy had never been so closed off.Foggy was the most caring and open person Matt had ever known.But that aspect of Foggy was gone right now, like he didn’t know or care about Matt at all.Matt had ruined everything between them. 

 

“The Guide helps the Sentinel manage the senses,” Matt said.“Sometimes the sentinel follows a sense so deep that it’s almost like catatonia.” 

 

“That happened to you,” Foggy said bluntly,“You mentioned that —after your dad died they thought you were manic-depressive with tendencies to catatonia.” 

 

“Yes,” Matt said.It had been terrifying; the nuns had talked about putting Matt in an institution, but luckily Stick had shown up in the nick of time to teach Matt meditation and his own methods of control. 

 

“So what about Stick — isn’t he your Guide then?” 

 

Matt scoffed. “I think he’s what they call a Rogue Sentinel — he has the same heightened senses I have, though not to the same degree.” 

 

“So, you don’t need a Guide,” Foggy said.“Stick taught you all you need to know.You’ve been fine on your own all this time.” 

 

Matt didn’t want to say it.He hesitated. 

 

“You’re not fine?”Foggy demanded.He was ruthless, cross-examining Matt like any star witness. 

 

“No,” Matt whispered. 

 

“Why? What happens without a Guide?” 

 

“Catatonia, coma, death — “ 

 

“Jesus, Matt!” 

 

“No, those are worse case scenarios—“ 

 

“What then!” Foggy demanded. 

 

“Distraction.Disorientation.Sleeplessness.One sense overpowering the others.Senses out of whack, too sensitive, or going completely dead.”

 

“But that — that’s what it’s always like for you,” Foggy said. 

 

“Yeah,” Matt said. 

 

“Because you don’t have a Guide?” 

 

“Allegedly,” Matt hedged. 

 

“So Sandburg magically does what for Ellison that I didn’t do for you?” Foggy said angrily. 

 

“Foggy, no— it’s not you — you’re perfect — it’s me, I can’t ask you to —- “ 

 

“God damn it!Matthew Michael Fucking Martyr Murdock!”Foggy was shouting now.He’d risen from behind his desk.“Ten years of my life I gave you, and you were so noble, so self-sacrificing, so unworthy— did you ever stop to think all I wanted in return was for you to acknowledge me — us?” 

 

“Us?”Matt whispered. 

 

Foggy collapsed back into his chair.“Ten years, Matt, and you were reading my heartbeat that whole time.Are you really going to sit there and act like you didn’t know you were stringing me along? And how pathetic I was, that I let you?”

 

“Foggy, no, I never—“ 

 

“I knew you were straight.I tried to let it go.I tried to keep it platonic, find other partners to help me keep it above the table with you.But I loved you, Matt, so much.So much.” Foggy’s voice broke. 

 

“Loved?” Matt said.“Foggy, I swear, I didn’t—“

 

“Whatever, Matt.Bygones.I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to derail your little spiel about the senses.Go back to this Guide thing, okay.I’m listening.” 

 

Foggy had deflated in his chair,and Matt’s brain was whirling.Stringing him along? Love? Matt had never guessed. 

 

The damn clock ticked.The white noise machine switched over again to thundering rainstorm. 

 

“The Guide helps ground the Sentinel,” Matt said dully.“The Guide is like a touchstone or a calibration point, helping the Sentinel tone back the senses, to keep the world at bay.” 

 

“So on top of everything, I was also a piss poor Guide?”Foggy sounded so wounded. 

 

“No, Foggy — no.Please. That’s not what I came here to say,” Matt said, heartbroken at the pain in Foggy’s voice. 

 

“Well, I wish you’d go ahead and say it,” Foggy sighed.“The buildup is killing me.” 

 

“I’m sorry,” Matt said. “I swear.I just.They didn’t even tell me anything I didn’t already know.They just put it in a way that made so much sense, I wanted to tell you… “ Matt swallowed.“I always wanted to tell you.You have to understand.The nuns thought I was crazy, they were going to lock me up for hearing voices.Then Stick, he practically beat it into me that nobody could be trusted.You, I trusted, more than anyone I’ve ever known, but why would I want to put such a burden on you? Oh, by the way, Foggy, a girl in the next building is passed out and a guy is raping her right now, but by the time we get there he’ll be out the door, so we have no proof? Oh, by the way, those guys are planning to jump me in the bathroom, ha ha, lucky for me, I’m a martial arts master with echolocation!Oh gosh, Fog, let’s stop in this bodega for some cereal because there’s a mugger lurking down the next alley!” 

 

Foggy waited for Matt to run out of steam.“It’s not the abilities, Matt.It’s not even the lying.It’s the way you blew me off and drove me out of your life.How many times do you want me to come crawling back? I think I’m done crawling, Matt.” 

 

“I’m the one crawling,” Matt quickly said.“I’ll crawl, on my knees, just say the word.” 

 

“I don’t want that, Matty,” Foggy said.“I don’t want anybody crawling, me or you.” 

 

“I just wanted to tell you this stuff about the Guide.I only wanted to tell you, because it rang so true.Everything has always been so much better with you.Everything about you is perfect, Fog— and the way you soothe my senses, turns out, it’s not a coincidence. You’re meant to be my other half.I understand that now.I just don’t know what to do about it.” 

 

“Other half,” Foggy laughed.“That’s fucking rich.You cut me out of your life for a full fucking year, then you come waltzing in with this, like I’m supposed to jump to be your sidekick, just so you can be a better Sentinel.” 

 

“Foggy, they said if I break my bond with you, I could die, or worse.” 

 

“That’s emotional blackmail,” Foggy said flatly. “And I don't even think I believe it — since you already broke it.” 

 

Matt didn’t mention that he’d secretly been giving himself long distances doses of Foggy to keep from going under. “I swear I’m not trying to pressure you, it’s just, when they showed up, and told me all of this, I realized how much I’d been lying to myself.Telling myself I was fine.Telling myself you were better off without me.I realized that this knowledge I’ve absolutely always had, since day one, that I’m better, a better man, a better human being, when I’m with you — it’s not just that you’re a nice guy. Which you are. But it’s that, I need you, Foggy.Specifically you, nobody but you, and in ways that run so deep I’m only half alive without you.” 

 

Matt was gasping, gripping the arms of his chair, until he’d gotten it all out.The hateful clock ticked.The surf pounded.Foggy sat, and his chair creaked slightly as he turned it, ever so slightly, this way and that. 

 

“What are you asking, Matt? I need you to lay it out for me, here.” 

 

Matt exhaled and tried to get a grip on himself. 

 

“Honestly, I knew even before they showed up that I wasn’t doing very well without you around. I missed you so much, I wanted you in my life, but I didn’t think it was fair of me to ask.”

 

Matt forced himself to breathe as Foggy was silent, thinking.

 

“I’m not leaving this job,” Foggy said at last. 

 

“I wouldn’t ask that,” Matt hastened to say. 

 

“Okay.I’m keeping my new place.” 

 

“Of course,” Matt said, hopes rising. 

 

“If we’re going to get back together somehow, it has to be on my terms,”Foggy said.“You don’t know how much it killed me, the way you sabotaged our partnership.I can’t go through that again.” 

 

The flatness of Foggy’s tone told Matt everything he needed to know. 

 

“You lay out the terms.Whatever you want.Stipulate the penalties.I won’t argue.” 

 

“The day Matt Murdock doesn’t argue, Hell’s Kitchen freezes over,” Foggy said wryly. 

 

Matt laughed.Foggy’s sarcastic gibe was the first time in the evening either one of them had relaxed even a little. 

 

“I want you to meet these guys. They’re in town on no set schedule.They’re dying to meet you,” Matt said. 

 

“I never know what Hogarth will throw at me,” Foggy said.“But I’ll call you tomorrow to let you know what time I’ll be leaving work.Okay?” 

 

“Foggy, this means the world to me, that you’re willing to hear them out,” Matt said. 

 

“We have a lot to work through,” Foggy said.“Don’t count your chickens. Nothing has been settled here, tonight.”

 

“You’re calling me tomorrow,” Matt said.“That means I already know, tomorrow will be so much better than my life has been for months.”

 

“Goodnight, Matt,” Foggy said. 

 

“Goodnight, Foggy,” Matt said, savoring the words he’d said to his best friend hundreds of times over the years, and now might be able to look forward to saying again, at least now and then. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy agrees to meet Jim and Blair.

Once again, Matt was waiting for Foggy, but overnight it seemed like so much had changed.

 

Foggy had called him in the afternoon.“Jeri liked the rewrite, and I just have to file a few motions, so if you and your new friends come over at six I should be wrapping up.”

 

Matt had hoped to take Foggy out to dinner, someplace nice, since money was no longer an issue due to Elektra’s bequest.But Foggy would only agree to meet on his own territory.

 

“No,” he said flatly.“I’m not talking about any of this in public, and I’m not inviting strangers to my apartment, and to be honest, your place is out of the question.Come to my office.They’ll just have to wait if Jeri throws anything at me last minute.”

 

Blair and Jim were relaxed and easy with each other in Foggy's well-appointed waiting room. HCB had even provided one of those glass jars of water with lemon slices floating in it. Jim was reading something on his phone, and Blair was surfing the internet, interrupting Jim every few minutes to point out his new discoveries, which Jim tolerated with a smile.Matt remembered so well Foggy’s inveterate google habit that it hurt him to see Blair doing the same.

 

Matt sat and breathed and tried to live through the weird feeling setting all of his senses on edge, till Foggy opened his office door and ushered them in.There were chairs for everyone and Foggy came around his desk to shake hands. 

 

“Foggy Nelson,” he said, omitting pleasantries.

 

Blair shook his hand with a wide smile.“I’m Blair Sandburg, thanks so much for meeting with us.This is Jim Ellison, my Sentinel.Don’t shake hands with him.”

 

“What?” Foggy said, retrieving his hand awkwardly from where he’d been reaching for Jim.Matt sighed in relief, despite the fact he hadn’t even noticed tensing up as Foggy approached the other Sentinel.

 

Ellison nodded his head pleasantly at Foggy, hands laced behind his back. “Can’t touch you.Guide thing.”

 

Foggy’s smile went a little hard, and Matt could hear his teeth champ as he swallowed his response.

 

“Okay. Well.Nice to meet you,” Foggy dissembled and returned to his desk chair.“That ice is broken right away, I guess.Care to explain why Mr. Ellison won’t shake hands with me?”

 

“Please don’t be offended,” Blair entreated. “We don’t mean any disrespect. There’s a good reason Jim can’t touch you, even though it sounds absurd.”

 

“Try me,” Foggy said.Matt cringed that the meeting had gotten off to such a poor start, with Foggy on the defensive and hard as nails right now against what Blair and Jim had to say. 

 

Blair hesitated. “This is going to sound weird. There’s no way around it. Please, just hear me out.”

 

“Okay,” Foggy said, marginally less defensively. 

 

“Let me just tell a story, okay? Before Jim and I had fully bonded, a rogue Sentinel named Alex Barnes came into town and basically tried to claim me for herself.”

 

“And Jim tried to kill her?” Foggy guessed.

 

Jim turned his head away, staring at the floor with a huff. “I wish.No, having another Sentinel messing around my Guide before we were bonded threw me for a loop.I was seeing things, my emotions were way out of whack…  I let Blair down, so many ways. Then, when Blair wouldn’t go along with Barnes, she killed him.”

 

“Killed him?” Matt said, leaning forward.

 

“Drowned,” Blair said, shivering.Jim reached out and laid a proprietary hand on Blair’s thigh, and Blair covered it with his own.“But Jim brought me back, and we figured it out about the spirit animals.”

 

“Spirit animals,” Foggy stated, with skepticism.

 

“Mine is a panther, Blair’s is a wolf.They merged, and that helped us realize we were meant to bond.” Ellison’s voice was matter of fact.

 

“Matt, is this true?” Foggy asked.

 

“They believe it’s true,” Matt confirmed. 

 

“Do we have spirit animals?” Foggy asked.

 

“I assume you do, but I wouldn’t know.I’ve only ever seen mine and Jim’s,” Blair answered.

 

“Feral tomcat,” Jim said to Matt. “I’ve seen it twice already.Yours, I’m not sure of yet.”

 

“Huh,” Foggy said.Matt refused to react.Maybe he’d dreamt about Foggy as a bear, or himself hunting down alleyways, but that didn’t mean he’d seen spirit animals.

 

“Shamanic techniques such as vision questing, communicating with animal spirit guides, and the like, are useful tools in a Sentinel/Guide relationship, but not essential,” Sandberg said, obviously slipping into his academic mode. 

 

“But what is important — absolutely critical — is that you bond,” Jim said.“I denied it for years.But the moment I gave in and gave myself to Blair, was the moment I truly came alive.”

 

The obnoxious clock on Foggy’s wall gave a sudden loud tock as the minute hand twitched to a new position.The white noise machine was a little less irksome to Matt than it had been the day before — he must have gotten used to it.But the room still felt like everyone was holding their breath.

 

“What is this bonding?” Matt asked, trying to shake the tension. “Foggy and I were best friends for nearly a decade.How is that not bonding?”

 

“I’m sorry if this is painful for you,” Blair said. “I can see that you’re estranged.Jim and I went around and around each other for years before we figured it out.You have to choose each other.Really commit.And then, you know, the bonding will take care of itself.”

 

“Ha!” Foggy laughed. “As law partners, we were practically married, and that didn’t stop him from leaving me in the lurch—“

 

Matt hunched in shame at the bitterness in Foggy’s tone.

 

“You have to be completely honest,” Jim said. “I’m not saying it’s not hard.It’s hard as hell.But it’s worth it.”

 

“I never held anything back —“ Foggy began, voice shaking with emotion, but Matt interrupted him.

 

“It’s my fault,” Matt said.“I was always the one holding back. I was stupid, I admit it.If I could do it all over, I’d do it differently.”

 

“Would you?” Foggy asked.

 

“Yes,” Matt said.“I swear.I’d tell you — I’d tell you everything. I was ashamed of the devil, I couldn’t stand letting that part of me near you.It wasn’t your fault, Fog. It was me, I was so afraid you’d leave that I drove you away.”

 

Foggy was listening, and he seemed to believe what Matt was saying, but he didn’t say anything more.

 

“Um,” Blair said.“This is great, but i also need to add, that we might be able to help Matt find his mother.”

 

Matt’s head was swimming. He’d never known his mother, so he didn’t know what he was missing.Anna Nelson was the closest thing he’d ever had to a mom, and she had been a loving maternal presence for a third of Matt’s life.Being part of the Nelson family again was more than Matt would even hope to ask. Getting Foggy back meant more to him than anything.

 

“Do you think she’s still alive?” Foggy said.“She’s been gone for over thirty years.”

 

“Yeah,” Blair said cautiously.“I think we know where she is.”

 

“Wow,” Matt said. He’d always kind of assumed, from the way his dad had lost track of her, that his mom was truly gone.

 

“Just because she gave birth to Matt doesn’t make her his mom,” Foggy said.His own birth mother, Rosalind Sharpe, had given full custody to Foggy’s dad shortly after he’d been born.She turned up in his life from time to time with her own agenda, but Foggy considered Anna to be his one and only mom. 

 

“I think it would be good.To know.Why she left us,” Matt said.The nuns had provided therapists for the orphans in their charge, but Matt hadn’t felt much closure regarding the disappearance of his mother.She’d left a note to Matt’s dad that remained in his father’s papers.He’d already been blind by then — the paper didn’t smell like anything but the inside of his dad’s top bureau drawer. The impression of her pen had been faint, but Matt made it out: “I’m sorry.I can’t do this.I wish you both the best.” No signature, no date.Matt’s dad said she’d left when Matt was only a few weeks old, and they’d never heard from her again.

 

“We have be careful,” Blair said. “Sentinels are driven to protect their territory, so we can’t appear as a threat.It’s best if we wait to make contact after you’re bonded and stable.”

 

Foggy choked off a laugh.

 

“What,” Matt said.

 

“Stable,” Foggy said.“I always thought you were so straight laced.Then I found out how off the rails you really were.”

 

Matt turned toward Foggy. “I can’t promise to change who I am.But I can try to be more honest about it.And if you’re willing to be my Guide, I swear I’ll do whatever it takes…”

 

“Hey man,” Blair said.“Stop.You’re desperate right now, and you’d say anything to convince him to forgive you.If I’m right, and I usually am, it’s way more important to be honest and consistent, than to make big promises you can’t keep.”

 

“Truer words,” Foggy sighed.

 

“I want to try,” Matt said.“I want to be worthy of your trust again.”

 

“You may not believe him,” Ellison said, “but he’s not lying.” 

 

“Oh wow,” Foggy said. “There’s two of them.”

 

“Isn’t it fantastic?” Blair said, joyfully.

 

“Did you not notice the white noise generator?” Foggy asked, incredulous.“A man shouldn’t have to worry about … people listening in on his digestion.”

 

“I don’t mind it,” Blair said. “There are perks.”

 

“Perks,” the big Sentinel laughed to himself. 

 

“Just admit it,” Foggy said.“Every time you say ‘bonding’ you mean something else.What is it you’re not saying? It’s sex, right? Shamanism my ass.”

 

“It’s not about the sex!” Blair denied.

 

“The sex is amazing,” Jim acknowledged.

 

“I knew it,” Foggy said, slumping back in his chair.

 

“Foggy, no, I’m not going to force you into anything you don’t want,” Matt said urgently.

 

“Matt, I’ve been half in love with you since the moment I laid eyes on you,” Foggy said wearily.“You are literally my sexual ideal.Believe me, that’s not the problem.But I’m not just going to jump into bed with you.”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Blair interrupted.“Time out, guys.Yes, of course Jim and I are lovers, and I’d be lying if I said that there is no sexual component to the bond.But that’s not what it is.The sex is kind of what the bond leads to, not the other way around.”

 

Jim spoke up.“Matt, what do you think of Foggy’s hair?”

 

“I love it,” Matt said, without even thinking.

 

Foggy said, “what? huh?”

 

Jim went on.“You love it, why?”

 

“it’s perfect,” Matt said.“So silky, so soft.I can hear it, rustling when he moves.It smells so good.I just, I’ve always loved it.”

 

“That’s the bond, that’s what it’s like. When you let it happen, when you let your Guide enrapture every sense, down to the core of who you are, down to your very soul — when you let go, and trust him to take over, then you’re bonded.And you can’t imagine how you ever lived without him.”

 

“Aw, big guy, I love you too,” Blair said.

 

“Shut up, Chief,” Jim said fondly.

 

“I already feel that way,” Matt said softly.

 

“No, you don’t,” Blair said.“No offense, man.But I can see how much you’re holding back.”

 

“I don’t —I want — I want to let go,” Matt said, realizing how true it was. 

 

“Matt, buddy,” Foggy said sadly. 

 

“Foggy, for years, you were right there, and I didn’t let you in, and now, it feels like everything I’ve done has built such a wall between us…. “

 

“Guys, I was literally killed,” Blair said, “by a crazy-ass unbonded rogue, and Jim and I still managed to work it out.”

 

“Only after you committed professional suicide,” Foggy interjected.“What.You think I can’t do my own research?”

 

Blair laughed.“I wouldn’t call it professional suicide.I still managed to complete, with a far less sensational approach to the topic, only a few years later.”

 

“I’m still sorry about all that.If I hadn’t been so defensive,” Jim began.

 

“And besides,” Blair interjected, hushing Jim, “let’s not make Matt feel like I’m still looking for research subjects. My notes are way more encrypted nowadays, and strictly for the benefit of the Sentinels and Guides themselves. Super confidential, I swear,” Blair said to Foggy. “Dude, are you cool with all this?”

 

“No,” Foggy said. “Matt and I still have a lot of trust to rebuild before I’ll be cool with it.But I’m not gonna lie.I do want what we had — and more, if we can really make a go of it.”

 

“Foggy,” Matt breathed.“Whatever you want, you name it.”

 

“We’ll work on it,” Foggy said. “That’s all I can say right now.”

 

“That’s fantastic,” Blair said happily. 

 

“Oh!” Jim said. “A bear!”

 

“What?” Matt said. 

 

“An eastern black bear, kind of a big one.Can you hear it?”Jim said.

 

A snuffling sound echoed faintly in Matt’s ears, like something from a dream.“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, I can.”

 

“That’s a really good sign,” Blair said.

 

“Wait,” Foggy said.“A bear? Really??”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blair and Jim lead Foggy and Matt through some simple experiments.

“This is perfect,” Blair said with a big smile.  “Thank you so much!”

 

“Of course,” Father Lantom said, nodding.  “Matt has always been one of our most faithful, and asks very little in return.”

 

Matt shook his head slightly, tongue-tied as he often was when receiving an unexpected compliment.  “Thanks, Father,” he said.

 

“We do appreciate it,” Foggy spoke up, and found himself blushing as Father Lantom caught him with a penetrating gaze. The priest said nothing, but as Matt’s confessor, he was privy to more details about Matt’s life than anyone, up to and including Foggy at this point.  Father Lantom easily unravelled the riddle of the Devil’s identity, and he knew very well that Matt and Foggy had dissolved their partnership.  In fact, he probably knew more about Matt’s thinking in that regard than Foggy did. 

 

Jim said little, but thanked the priest as he left with one last piercing look at Foggy.

 

Foggy knew that look.  It said, “get your shit together, Nelson.” It put Foggy’s teeth a little on edge, because he hadn’t been the one who had torn the two of them apart… but Matt was really trying, now, and Foggy had to acknowledge that, and that meant he had to do his part.  Even though he felt like he had done a lot more than his part over the years, time after time, and what had all his efforts with Matt really accomplished in the end?

 

Foggy felt his own frustration mounting, his heart beat speeding up and his temperature rising, and he tried to keep his cool.  He was here to give this a shot, whatever it was.  He wanted Matt’s friendship, but he had to admit that he was here because something even more was on offer – the chance to bond with Matt in a way that even a mule-headed Murdock could not back out on.  Foggy wasn’t sure about any of it.  But it was a chance he couldn’t afford not to take.

 

“This is perfect,” Blair repeated happily.  “Neutral territory, right?”

 

Matt nodded. The cat had his tongue apparently (no pun intended).  He swallowed nervously, one of his few tells, but one Foggy knew like the back of his own hand. 

 

“This is Matt’s territory,” Foggy said.  “But it doesn’t carry any negative associations for me.”

 

Father Lantom had arranged for Matt and Foggy to meet with Jim and Blair in one of the church’s conference rooms, a nicely appointed room with a couple of sofas and some comfy chairs, and a meeting table at one end with folding chairs around it.  Jim plopped down in the sofa that faced the door, and Matt, after a moment sat in the other sofa facing him. 

 

“Sit there?” Blair asked, pointing to the spot on the sofa next to Matt.

 

“Okay,” Foggy said and sat down.  It was by far the most awkward sitting-down Foggy had ever experienced, being observed like one half of a pair of bonobos in a clearing surrounded by anthropologists. 

 

Blair clapped his hands together and said, “Let’s get started, shall we?”

 

Jim threw a mischievous grin at Foggy and an eyebrow waggle that spoke volumes. Clearly he enjoyed it when his partner put on his academic side, and Foggy could almost see the leather patches on the professorial jacket, even though Blair was dressed in nothing more formal than a hoodie over a Henley and a tee shirt.

 

Blair’s carrier bag was on the meeting table at the end of the room. 

 

“Matt, first off, how much can you tell about the contents of the bag?” Blair asked. 

 

“Lemon, wool, some sort of green, possibly dandelion?   Tissue paper. Some bags. Hollow wooden stick.  Something metal.”

 

“Fantastic,” Blair said, his eyes glinting with interest. “Okay.  I’m going to give Foggy the hollow stick, and I want you to see if it comes any clearer.”

 

Blair reached into the bag and took out a bamboo flute and simply handed it to Foggy. 

 

“Oh!” Matt said. “It’s a flute!”  

 

Foggy’s mouth fell open.  “How did my holding it make a difference?” he demanded. 

 

Blair sealed his mouth and Jim just grinned a tiny grin.

 

“How?” Foggy said to Matt. 

 

Matt was leaning slightly toward Foggy and Foggy was sure he didn’t realize it.

 

“Everything is clearer with you,” Matt said.  “I could hear the hollowness of it, and I could smell that it was wood, but the moment Blair handed it to you, I could smell so much more – the breath of the last person who played it, the sweat of their fingertips, and….”

 

Matt’s mouth slammed shut and he turned his face away from Foggy.

 

“Go on,” Blair encouraged softly.

 

“He won’t like it,” Matt whispered. 

 

“It’s okay,” Blair said gently. Foggy’s hackles went up, in a way he couldn’t quite defend to himself.  No one should use that soothing tone with Matt but Foggy himself.  Jim’s blue eyes seared Foggy from across the room, immediately perceiving the friction in Foggy’s heart towards the other Sentinel’s Guide. 

 

Matt swallowed, and spoke hesitantly.  “I could hear the way Foggy’s breath moved around the flute.  I think I could almost feel it.  And I could hear Foggy’s heartbeat echoing through the instrument, sounding out through the fingerholes.”

 

“My heart beat was playing the flute?” Foggy said, stunned.

 

Matt nodded, still not looking up.   

 

Candace had played the flute in band as a kid.  Foggy remembered the way she would slap the keys closed with her fingers, making the flute ring its tones like a percussion instrument. 

 

“Matt, that’s amazing,” Foggy said.

 

Matt blushed, a full Murdock blush.  “Thank you,” he said, and Foggy realized how much this meant to Matt.

 

“Great job, guys,” Blair said after a moment.  “Here’s the next bit.”

 

He handed Foggy a ziplock bag with another bag inside it.  Foggy had no idea what was inside; there were too many layers of plastic.

 

Matt’s head came up, turned toward Foggy, and Foggy was surprised to see that Matt was scenting the air like a dog, wrinkling open his nose just the slightest. 

 

“Teabag.  Lipton,” Matt pronounced. 

 

“Correct,” Blair said.  “Bagged it at our hotel off our free tea tray. Could you smell it on me?”

 

“No,” Matt said. 

 

“Because I bagged it last night, and showered this morning,” Blair said. “Triple bagged. How did you smell it through the bags?”

 

Foggy turned to look at Matt, to watch him sort through his answer. 

 

“There wasn’t anything to smell,” Matt said slowly, “when it was still in your hands.  But then, when it was in Foggy’s hands, it became of part of his overall scent, and suddenly, it was clear as day; I could smell it.”

 

“Bingo,” Jim said.  “That’s your Guide right there.”

 

Foggy suddenly felt intensely self-conscious, that same unpleasantly naked feeling he’d had when Matt’s senses were first revealed. 

 

“He doesn’t like it,” Matt said, frowning, and Foggy felt a pang which he refused to admit was his reluctance to put such a frown on Matt’s face.    

 

“I get that,” Jim said.  “I remember what it felt like to be constantly observed.  Like a bug under a microscope.”

 

“Your Guide made you feel that way?” Matt asked.

 

“I’m a trained observer,” Blair said, “as an anthropologist.  As is Foggy, as a defense attorney.”

 

“True,” Foggy said. “But Matt can’t see the way I watch him.”

 

He blurted it out, but it was a fact.  Foggy had never been able to tear his eyes off Matt, from the moment they first met.  He could spot Matt a block away, or in the shadows down an alleyway, or on a rooftop ten stories up on a cloudy night.  Foggy knew that shape, that graceful glide, and in his heart, he had to admit he’d known from the very beginning, from the very first grainy footage, exactly who the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen really was.  It had made him all the more vociferous in his condemnation of the vigilante, because he couldn’t understand how that shadowy figure could possibly be his blind best friend.

 

“The two of you are meant to function as one,” Blair explained.  “You’re attuned to each other.  The bond goes both ways.”

 

“But I don’t have heightened senses,” Foggy objected.  “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get out of this.”

 

Matt cringed a little, just the slightest, but Foggy refused to feel guilty about it.

 

“Foggy,” Blair said, “this is important.  I need you to do something for me.  Okay?”

 

The Guide’s reasonable tone didn’t irk Foggy as much when it was turned on him as when Blair directed it at Matt.

 

“Okay,” Foggy said, readily enough. 

 

“Here we go,” Jim said.

 

“Jim,” Blair said, in a tone that made Jim quiet down and sit back in his sofa. 

 

“Okay,” Blair said, “this is an imagery exercise.  I think you’ll see the point right away.  First, I want you to take some cleansing breaths.  In for seven, hold for five, out for nine, okay?”

 

“Sure,” Foggy said, trying to find the most relaxing posture on his own sofa, which was just a bit too soft.

 

“In, hold, out,” Blair said slowly.  “Again, in, hold, out.”

 

Foggy felt the deep breaths even out his tension.  Beside him, on the couch, he felt Matt breathing alongside him, the same deep breaths, and that felt good, to think of Matt breathing and relaxing in tandem with him.

 

“Now think of a place where you feel at peace,” Blair said.  “Think of resting there.  You feel the tension flowing out, drifting away.  There’s nothing there you need to be concerned about.  You feel warm, and rested, not too tired, and every need of your body is met.  Feel a gentle light shine onto your face.  Maybe the sun, or maybe just a softly lit room.  Imagine yourself, perfectly relaxed.  Breathe and enjoy that feeling.”

 

Foggy could picture the room, his old bedroom in the first apartment he and Matt had shared.  It was tiny as a closet, but theirs, together, cozy in the way only an apartment shared by two best friends could be.  All its inconveniences and hassles meant nothing to them, because they were there together.  Foggy smiled, remembering.

 

“Now, I want you to think about this. You’re not alone in this good place, are you? Someone belongs there beside you.  Matt.  He’s right there, just as relaxed and at peace as you are.  He’s close, and it feels so safe and good to have him there.  If you open your hand, you’ll find Matt’s hand slipping into yours.  Nothing asked, and everything given, everything open, accepting.  Both of you perfectly calm, perfectly safe, at peace.  Together.”

 

Foggy felt the fingers of his right hand fall open, and softly, gently, Matt’s hand crept into his. 

 

“Feel it,” Blair whispered. 

 

Foggy felt it, stronger than he’d dared to hope he would, the love welling up from deep inside his heart, the soul-deep gratitude that Matt was safe and well beside him, the strength seeping into him from Matt’s timid grip.  Foggy’s hand, almost without his bidding, held Matt’s a little harder, and Matt’s hand tightened around his own, the fingers cold and clammy from stress, and Foggy gave a little laugh, that was almost a sob, and held tighter, caressing the back of Matt’s calloused hand with a soothing stroke of his thumb, and he heard the same explosive breath of cautious joy escape Matt’s lips, and it made him stroke that precious hand again, the only hand he’d ever loved so much in all his life, the hand that made everything perfect just by touching his own. 

 

“There,” Jim said.  “You got it.”

 

Foggy felt Matt’s grip clench around his hand in a momentary spasm, and he knew that Matt didn’t like the other Sentinel sensing Foggy’s feelings.  In that moment, the messy feelings divided them, but not before Foggy had felt the completeness, the rightness of his hand in Matt’s, that had always felt so much better than anything else he’d ever known.

 

“That’s what the Guide feels,” Blair whispered.  “But that’s only the beginning. You get it?”

 

“Yeah,” Foggy sighed.

 

“You want it, right?” Blair said.

 

“More than anything,” Foggy admitted. And Matt’s hand clenched around Foggy’s, painlessly, and Matt let out another tiny sound, and when Foggy turned, tears were streaming down Matt’s smiling face. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A problem arises for Jim and Blair.

Matt loved Foggy’s new place.  It wasn’t brand new, and it didn’t have that converted warehouse feeling that Matt’s place had.  It was a simple suite of renovated rooms, one bedroom with a living dining area and tiny kitchenette, but it was already pure Foggy.  High ceilings, big windows, old fashioned details in the woodwork, creaking refinished hard wood floors.  Foggy had bought a new couch, put up his bookshelves, and it was his place, as sure as the old one had been, but far less drafty, less scuttling with secret vermin problems that his old building could never quite shake. 

 

Foggy had finally agreed to meet with Jim and Blair at his place after Matt had held his hand and cried his eyes out.  Matt wasn’t sure if it was Jim and Blair’s overall air of trustworthiness and general likeability that had finally won Foggy over, or if it was really the soggy handholding. Whatever it was, Matt would take it.  He’d never actually been inside the apartment before, and he was loving the hell out of sitting on Foggy’s comfy new couch, drinking an early afternoon beer that was Matt’s favorite brand, one Foggy had to have bought for him especially. 

 

Matt had arrived a few minutes early, and Foggy had actually hugged him at the door.  Matt thought his face would split open with smiling.  So he was unprepared for the bombshell Jim and Blair dropped when they arrived promptly at three. 

 

“Gentlemen, we have a problem,” Blair said grimly.  Jim was looming behind him, appearing a lot wider in the shoulder than he had at previous meetings, brow furled and jaw locked.  He didn’t say a word.

 

“What is it?” Foggy said. Foggy was a problem solver, always eager to brainstorm for solutions.  Matt, to his shame, preferred to solve problems either purely on paper or with his fists. 

 

“There’s a rogue Sentinel prowling the area,” Blair said.  “Jim is out of his mind and this isn’t even his territory.  Matt, how are you so calm? Don’t you feel it?”

 

“Um,” Matt said. “I don’t think so?”

 

“Calm?” Foggy said.  “I never thought I’d see the day when Matt would be the calmest person in the room.”

 

“Jim?” Blair said, leaning into his Sentinel.  “Stay with me, buddy.”

 

“Trying,” Jim said.  “The smell. He reeks of aggression.”

 

Matt stiffened against his will, and of course Foggy easily read the micro change in his expression.

 

“Shit,” Foggy said. “We know who it is, don’t we, Matt.”

 

“Yeah,” Matt admitted with a sigh.

 

“Who?” Blair said.  “Have you had run-ins with a rogue in the past? Why didn’t you tell us?”

 

“I did,” Matt said.  “Didn’t I?  My old trainer.  Stick.”

 

Blair’s eyes widened.  “Holy observer bias, Batman!  In my mind, I had your old trainer pegged as a latent Guide.”

 

Foggy barked out a laugh at the thought while Matt just hung his head miserably.

 

“I’m sorry, I guess I should’ve been more forthcoming,” Matt said. 

 

“New tricks,” Foggy muttered.

 

Matt huddled further down into the couch.

 

“You were trained by a rogue?” Blair asked.  He led Jim to Foggy’s overstuffed study chair, pushed him down into it and perched on the arm, draping himself around Jim.  Jim turned his face into his Guide’s torso, and breathed deeply. 

 

Matt was beside himself with envy, desperate to recover that kind of intimacy that he’d used to take for granted with Foggy – whatever Foggy was willing to offer.

 

“Matt, spill,” Foggy said, sitting down beside Matt on the couch.  It was a big couch – too big in Matt’s opinion, but at least they were sharing the same furniture.

 

“After I was blinded, my dad took my new sensory problems in stride.  He helped me so much.”

 

“Hm,” Blair said, nodding. 

 

“Then my dad was killed and I was sent to the orphanage.  My senses went haywire.  The nuns had no idea what to do for me.  I was thrashing around, tormented by sounds and smells and sensations they couldn’t even detect.  Then sometimes, everything would cut out and they couldn’t even reach me.  They thought I was severely bipolar, manic and catatonic by turns.  Then Stick showed up and he taught me to focus, taught me how to meditate.”

 

“And he tried to make you into his little killer,” Foggy said.

 

“Wait,” Blair said.  “What?”

 

“He belonged to some crazy sect called the Chaste,” Foggy said, “Stockholming orphans to do his bidding.”

 

“The Chaste,” Blair breathed. “I’ve seen a few references here and there.  Your trainer was one of them?”

 

“Yes,” Matt said.  “And before you make any more assumptions, I just have to point out, that Stick was right about one thing.  The Chaste are sworn enemies to a sect of ninjas called the Hand, and the Hand really do exist, they’ve been active here in New York, and they killed a lot of people …  including a woman I used to be involved with.”   The pain of losing Elektra was still heavy in Matt’s heart.  She had loved him in her way, and he had loved her in his.  They made a terrible couple, that was for sure.

 

“Another rogue Sentinel?” Blair asked. Jim brought his right hand up to rest across Blair’s knee.

 

“No,” Matt said, with a heavy sigh.  “I don’t think she was a Sentinel.  She was an extremely talented fighter, deadly, serious, unstoppable.  Until the Hand killed her.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Jim said.  “It’s always rough, losing part of your corps.”

 

Matt stopped short, then nodded.  “Yeah.  That’s exactly it.  She was the only person I ever met who knew how I felt, charging into the fight, giving in to that urge.  She was wild, untamed.  I think she even scared Stick sometimes.”

 

Foggy reached out for Matt’s hand, bridging the distance between them on the couch.  Foggy’s hand was strong, yet so soft and soothing; Matt couldn’t imagine a hand more perfect.  “I’m sorry, Matt… by the time I found out that Elektra was gone, you’d cut ties.  I should have done more to reach out to you.”

 

“It’s okay,” Matt said.  “I was trying to do what was best.”

 

“Unilaterally,” Foggy inserted.  “But, at least, we’re gonna work past all that.  Right?”

 

“Yes,” Matt swore.

 

“I really want to do more training with you two,” Blair said.  “But the rogue situation complicates matters.  Do you, are you okay with reaching out to him?”

 

Jim literally growled at the thought.  Matt had a sudden vision of the black panther, Jim’s spirit animal, pacing and switching its tail angrily.

 

“I know how to contact him,” Matt said, “But there’s no guarantee he’ll answer.”

 

“Hm,” Blair said.  “I’d like to meet him.”

 

Jim suddenly pulled Blair fully into his lap.  “Maybe skype, huh Chief?”

 

Blair settled closer to his Sentinel, and Matt’s hand held tight to Foggy’s, still in his own. 

 

“We’ll figure it out,” Blair said. 

 

“If Stick’s back in town, that means trouble, doesn’t it, Matt?” Foggy said.  “Have you heard anything out of the Hand?”

 

Matt had been cutting back on his patrols since Jim and Blair had arrived.  It had only been a few days, but Matt knew how swiftly the Hand could move.

 

“I haven’t heard anything specific,” Matt said.  “But I’ll keep an ear out.”

 

“So will we,” Blair said, “if that’s okay with you.”

 

Matt didn’t feel all that territorial when it came to the big Sentinel and his Guide, as long as they kept their paws off of Foggy.

 

“The Hand are formidable enemies,” Matt side.  “Very difficult to fight. You guys be careful.”

 

Jim huffed quietly, still not turning his face away from his Guide.  “We’re careful, right big guy?”

 

“Mm,” Jim muttered shortly.

 

“Besides, if the Hand are used to going up against the Chaste, then we have a huge advantage over them,” Blair said.

 

“Oh yeah?” Matt asked. “What’s that?”

 

“Me and Foggy,” Blair grinned.  “Rogue Sentinels are scary bastards.  But their skills are nothing compared to a fully bonded team.”

 

“But we’re not bonded,” Foggy said.  “And I’m not a fighter.”

 

“Hey,” Blair said, holding up his hands.  “Do I look like a fighter to you? Hell no!  I leave the guns to the Big Guy.”

 

“I don’t like guns,” Matt said.

 

“To each his own,” Blair said, “but if Jim brings one to a sword fight, I’m all for the weapon of choice that keeps him alive.”

 

“Hear hear,” Foggy said.  “And I guess, I do know my way around a baseball bat.”

 

“No one’s going up against the Hand with a baseball bat, Foggy,” Matt declared. 

 

“Again with the unilateral pronouncements!” Foggy exclaimed.  “Not that I would even want to!  But I do know how to defend myself, at least a little!”

 

“You’ll need to learn more,” Jim growled. “Like it or not, being a Guide means living a life of danger.  The sooner you and Matt accept that and act accordingly, the better.  And not by running away from it!”

 

“Well said, Jim,” Blair said quietly, and Matt could hear the love and admiration in the Guide’s voice. “I actually graduated from the Cascade Police Academy, even though I never worked as a regular officer,” Blair pointed out.

 

“Guys, I’m an attorney,” Foggy said.  “It’s the opposite of a police officer, as Brett Mahoney would be quick to tell you.”

 

Matt frowned.  “Not the opposite.  The complement.”

 

“Yes,” Blair said.  “As a Guide, I’m Jim’s complement, even though I’m not that great of a fighter.”

 

“Don’t sell yourself, um, short, Chief,” Jim said with a snicker.

 

“Hardy har har,” Blair said. “From the mentions I’ve read, the Chaste rejected their reliance on the Guide, and some even deliberately destroyed one of their senses in order to attain mastery over their remaining senses without a Guide’s help.”

 

“Oh my god,” Foggy said. “Matt, do you think?”

 

“I don’t know,” Matt said grimly.  “I wouldn’t put it past him.  I always just assumed he was born blind.”

 

“Shit,” Blair breathed.

 

“Calm it the hell down, Chief.  I'm not letting you out of arm’s reach as long as I can smell this guy within a ten-mile radius.”

 

“You can smell a guy from ten miles away?” Foggy said.

 

“Hyperbole; never been able to set up a good control,” Blair muttered.

 

“Yes,” Jim said, “if he reeks like this one.”

 

Matt laughed. “I just got used to it.  I always kind of blamed it on his diet, too much raw fish and onions.”

 

Foggy chuckled. 

 

“I see you two are holding hands again,” Blair said happily. “I want to get more training in, but I think we’ve had enough excitement today.  Matt, please tell the rogue we’re asking politely for him to avoid your territory for the time being.”

 

“He considers me still to be his student, and my territory subordinate to his own,” Matt said. 

 

“The hell you say,” Foggy said.  “Blair, how can we move this bonding thing along? If it makes Matt safer from Stick and from the Hand, I want to go faster.”

 

“I’ll think about it,” Blair said.  “In the old days, cultures put young people through a rite of passage, the kind of thing that helped young Sentinels manifest their abilities, during which, their Guides would instinctively come forward.  Didn’t you feel that instinctive pull, Foggy?”

 

“Of course,” Foggy admitted.  “The instant I first saw him.  Luckily I already knew I swing both ways.”

 

“Tell me about it!” Blair laughed.  “Anyway, a vision quest or walkabout gave Sentinels the chance to let their senses run wild, and let down the defenses that kept out the Guide. Because Sentinels did so much to protect their territory, they had more leeway to choose ‘brothers in arms’ who might not have been the greatest fighters on the surface, but essential to helping their Sentinels stay grounded.”

 

“I always wanted to go on a Walkabout,” Foggy said.

 

“We should go back to the Adirondacks,” Matt said softly.

 

“What the heck? You hated that trip,” Foggy said.

 

“I only hated it because I thought I was going to slip up, and give myself away,” Matt said.  “Once we got outside the City, my senses latched on to you and it was like nothing else even existed.  I was living, breathing, tasting, feeling one thousand percent more Foggy, that whole trip. It was Heaven and Hell all at once.”

 

“And I thought you were just miserable,” Foggy said.

 

“I had the world’s most raging boner,” Matt admitted. “It would not quit.”

 

“On that note,” Blair said, clearing his throat, “I’ve got to get Jim back to the hotel.”

 

 

“Sure,” Foggy said, standing, which was not at all what Matt wanted, but Matt stood up as well to walk with the guys to the door. 

 

“Sorry we didn’t get much done today,” Matt said.

 

“Don’t be sorry,” Blair said.  “We’ve made several important breakthroughs.  You guys are totally on the right path.”

 

Jim and Blair were soon gone and Matt, though he liked them very well, heaved a sigh of relief.  The low-level stress of having another Sentinel in the room was something Matt was familiar with from his time with Stick, and it actually helped to know what had caused at least some of that insistent, buzzing tension between Matt and his one-time teacher.

 

“I wish we could just take a break and run off to the woods,” Foggy said.

 

“Yeah?” Matt asked.

 

“Boner, huh?”

 

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Matt said, grinning. 

 

“Huh,” Foggy said.  “Guess I know where I’ll be booking a cabin if Hogarth ever clears me for more than 36 hours off.”

 

“Foggy, can I – please-- kiss you?”  Matt said.

 

Foggy didn’t answer for a moment.

 

“Never mind, that was inappropriate.  Your pace, I promised--”

 

Foggy moved into Matt’s space and Matt stopped talking.  Talking was stupid when it was so important to breathe Foggy in, the incredible heady scent of him, the heat radiating off him, the simple sound of his breathing, his heartbeat, the silky swish of his hair. And then Foggy’s lips, never before kissed, touched his own, and the taste of Foggy exploded into his mouth in all of his beer and thai food and coffee and bagel glory, and underneath it all blossomed the essence of Foggy that Matt had centered his universe around, so many years ago, from which Matt had only just managed to hold himself back, from falling to his knees and worshipping, by the sheer excruciating sense of how unworthy he was to love a human being this excellent.

 

“Foggy, I--”

 

“Sh,” Foggy said, laying one finger across Matt’s lips.  “I’m still mad.  But seeing them together? It makes me realize how much we’re really working to overcome.  I want it.  I want what they have, so bad.  Do you, Matty? Do you want to be like them?”

 

“So bad, Foggy,” Matt almost sobbed.

 

“I’m starting to get it,” Foggy said.  “The thing about Stick. Just the idea that he might literally have blinded himself to avoid forming this kind of connection.  That makes me want it so much more, just to spite that son of a bitch.  But more – more, that it’s a connection so strong, that it terrified him so much – it makes me understand, just a little, why you kept reeling me in, and pushing me away, for so many years.”

 

Foggy kissed him again, so lightly, and Matt felt the searing flame of the kiss like a sizzle running shocks all through his body. 

 

“Am I really so scary?” Foggy asked.

 

“Terrifying,” Matt whispered.  “Sincerely.  I don’t think there’s a single thing I wouldn’t do for you.”

 

“Except trust me,” Foggy said, and he stepped back. But he left his hand on Matt’s shoulder. 

 

“We’ll get there.  I think.  Do you think?”

 

Matt nodded,  a small nod, while inside, he was hoping and praying and begging and bargaining, pleading with whatever gods or spirit animals might bring Foggy back to him.  He would leave a dozen Snickers a day for Foggy’s spirit bear, or send his feral tomcat to leave a steady stream of half-dead mice at Foggy’s spirit door, whatever would do any good.

 

“Yeah,” Matt said. 

 

“I like that I give you a raging boner,” Foggy said as he turned back to the kitchen.  “It’s good to know there is some justice in the world.  Do you want another beer?”

 

“Uh, sure,” Matt said, but first he headed off for a bathroom break.      

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stick attacks.

Jeri dropped an assignment on Foggy’s desk at 5:30 and told him, as usual, to have it on her desk by the next morning at 8. 

 

Foggy didn’t even sigh.He dug in. He did the assignment, and he did it well.He wasn’t so much trying to impress Jeri, or even trying to get ahead in the firm.He was thriving at HCB.This was his job, this was what he had trained for, this was what he knew how to do and he was damn good at it.He thrilled in it, to be honest.The simple intellectual pleasure, solving the problem, presenting the argument, stitching it up air tight, clean and seamless and irrefutable. If only life could be so easy. 

 

Foggy could have called up a car to take him home, but honestly, he needed the walk after such a long day at the desk.He walked out of HCB something before midnight, but he was a New Yorker.He knew how to walk and where not to go. His new place was golden.It was only a thirty minute walk from HCB.He’d be there in no time.Thank god Jeri didn’t mind her attorneys wearing shoes you could walk in to the office. 

 

Foggy was almost home when he felt it: some kind of shiver in his bones.Some kind of warning.He had his phone in his hand, his finger on the button, calling Matt, when he was suddenly tripping over something that hadn’t been there a minute ago. And then he was against the wall, just in an alcove that didn’t even qualify as an alley, but wasn’t clear from the street, and overhung with awnings that broke the line of surveillance from above. 

 

Foggy was face to face with Matt’s blind fight master, Stick.His blank, cloudy eyes stared sightlessly off to one side and slightly above Foggy’s head.Foggy knew the man was blind but he gave the impression of not deigning to see someone as inconsequential as Foggy. 

 

“I didn’t want to do this,” Stick began, in his grating voice, “but you wouldn’t stay out of Matty’s business.You don’t understand the scale of what’s about to go down.You’ll get him killed.It’s for your own good.” 

 

As he talked, Stick whacked Foggy, hard, with his namesake cane.He didn’t pull his punches. Foggy didn’t stand a chance; he had no way to block the master fighter’s blows.Stick landed heavy strikes on both Foggy’s arms, both his thighs, and had just dealt him a ringing blow to the side of his head when Foggy heard a terrifying scream of fury and Matt dove into the alcove like an avenging angel with the wrath of all heaven or hell on his side. 

 

Stick turned to face his former pupil, opening his mouth to speak, but Matt’s entire body became an arsenal of deadly weapons.His fists flew, landing powerful blows against the old man’s torso. His feet kicked out, knocking Stick off balance, forcing him back against the wall.Matt’s elbows become deadly batons, driving the breath out of the old man. 

 

“Stop!” Foggy shouted.“Stop — you’ll kill him!” Foggy had seen blurry video footage of Matt in fighting mode, but he had never imagined such concentrated deadly fury. 

 

“Foggy — he hurt you, Fog — he dared to touch you!” Matt snarled, his voice such a growl it was barely human. 

 

“Stop!” Foggy said.“Take me home.Tell him — tell him what he needs to hear.” 

 

“I am not your student any more,” Matt snarled at Stick.“I am not your disciple and I never have been.I don’t care about the Chaste.I will never become like you. If I fight the Hand, it will be on my own terms, not yours.Foggy means more to me than anything in this world.And if you touch him again, old man, I will kill you.” 

 

Foggy shuddered as he heard Matt make his deadly vow.He knew without a doubt that Matt was deadly serious about every word.He had to get Matt out of there before Stick caught his breath and started up with goading Matt again, as stupid as that would be. 

 

“Come on, Matt, please, take me home.”Foggy lay his hands on Matt, pulling him back. 

 

Matt wasn’t even in armor.He had on street clothes, his trademark red glasses over his eyes. Foggy was glad for the shelter of the alcove, but he needed to get Matt out of there before somebody noticed a disturbance. 

 

“Come on, Matty, please,” Foggy repeated. Matt was bristling at Stick, who still hadn’t answered Matt’s threat. 

 

Foggy wasn’t faking it though.Stick’s warning blows were already swelling into painful bruises that left Foggy limping. 

 

“I need your help, Matt, come on,” Foggy pleaded. 

 

Matt swung away from Stick and seemed to become aware of Foggy’s injuries.He ran his hands quickly over Foggy’s arms and legs, seeming to sense the rising heat of Foggy’s bruises. 

  
“He got me in the head, too, but not as hard,” Foggy said. 

 

He instantly regretted it, as Matt’s foot lashed out to catch Stick in the face, knocking him off his feet. 

 

“Shit, Matt!Stop it! Come on!” 

 

“He’ll live. This time,” Matt growled.

 

They reached Foggy’s apartment in no time.Stick must have been casing the place. 

 

Foggy’s first aid kit was substantial, even though he had told himself he wouldn’t be seeing any more of Matt.He had plenty of Tiger Balm and arnica gel, which Matt soothed into his bruises. 

 

“I’m okay, Matt, really,” Foggy protested, as Matt fussed over him and passed his hands over the bruises over and over, testing them for the heat of swelling. 

 

“He’ll never touch you again, Foggy, I swear it,” Matt muttered. 

 

Foggy realized this was not just Matt’s emotional reaction— it was the Sentinel instinct, to protect his Guide against an encroaching Rogue, to the death if need be. 

 

“Matty, I’m right here.I’m okay.Come here.” 

 

Foggy pulled Matt down to sit beside him on the sofa. 

 

Matt was stiff and trembling, but Foggy urged him closer until Matt was pressed up against him.Foggy could feel the shudders of adrenaline still coursing through Matt’s body, the heat coming off of him in his fury. 

 

“You got there so fast.How did you do it?” 

 

“I was waiting for you.I’m always near by,” Matt admitted. Foggy had suspected as much but Matt had never come out and admitted it before. 

 

“You watch my apartment.” 

 

“I watch wherever you are.I can’t stand it, Foggy.I can’t stand it when I can’t … god,” Matt’s voice broke and his whole body shuddered. “He hurt you.I wasn’t fast enough.” 

 

“You were, Matty.You were so fast.You got there so fast. You stopped him,” Foggy murmured.Matt was sobbing, trying to breathe and just shaking in Foggy’s arms. 

 

“You stopped him, sweetheart.You did it.You saved me.” 

 

Finally Matt seemed to hear him.He nestled his face into Foggy’s shoulder and honestly, Foggy didn’t mind.If it made Matt feel better, he was for it.And he couldn’t deny it made him feel better too, to have Matt pressed up against him. 

 

“I saved you,” Matt whispered.“I got there in time.” 

 

Foggy heard Matt’s tiny voice and he realized how important this moment was to Matt.Matt, who had found his own father’s dead body, shot in an alley.Matt, who had fought off dozens of ninjas only to watch as Elektra lost her life. Matt, who heard every cry of distress in Hell’s Kitchen and accepted those pains as his responsibility to set right. 

 

“You saved me,” Foggy said.If he had to be the damsel in this scenario, so be it.He would damsel the hell out of it.“Thank you, Matty.” 

 

“Oh, god, oh Foggy,” Matt sobbed, and now he was crying in earnest, big ugly racking sobs.Tears and snot were all over his face and running down onto Foggy’s shoulder. It wasn’t the first time Foggy had seen Matt cry, but this time, it felt like a healing, cathartic breakthrough. 

 

Foggy let Matt cry himself out.Then he went and got him a glass of water and some painkillers, and with a wet wash cloth, he gently washed Matt’s face.Surprisingly, Matt swallowed the painkillers, limply accepting Foggy’s ministrations. 

 

“Will you please stay here with me tonight, Matty?” Foggy asked. 

 

Foggy wasn’t thinking about tomorrow.Foggy wasn’t thinking about the last ten years.He wasn’t thinking about the disastrous year they’d just managed to push their way past. He was only thinking about Matt, the ferocious and desperate love Matt bore for him, and Foggy couldn’t bear to let Matt stumble out into the night, to crouch on the next roof over till dawn, straining his super human ears for Foggy’s heartbeat.Foggy couldn’t do that to Matt any more. 

 

In a heartbeat, Foggy knew Matt was forgiven. 

 

It wasn’t that Matt’s murderous attack was laudable. 

 

it wasn’t that Foggy felt like he owed Matt for saving him. 

 

It was just that Matt had finally broken down and clung to Foggy like the lifeline, Foggy knew in his heart, he was.Matt had been watching for him, like he always was, because that was the reality of Matt’s existence, and Matt had finally admitted it out loud.It moved Foggy because it was not only true, it was the bedrock truth of Matt’s life at this point. 

 

Foggy had always felt he came a distant second to Matt’s devotion to the City. 

 

Now Foggy knew in his gut, he had truly experienced and fully understood, that without Foggy, Matt could never survive his fight for the City. He was unmoored without his Guide.And in that instant, Foggy forgave him, and dedicated himself from that moment on, to his Sentinel. 

 

Matt didn’t know it yet, but what seemed like one of the worst nights of his life, had just become the best. 

 

“Come on, Matt, this couch is good, but nothing beats my new bed. Silk sheets and everything.” 

 

“Huh?” Matt said intelligently, still shaken by his crying fit. 

 

“Let’s get you into my bed,” Foggy said. 

 

“Okay,” Matt said and let Foggy lead.

  
Foggy had a bony, whipcord Sentinel wrapped around him all night, and he couldn’t remember ever having slept so well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newly-bonded Matt takes a spirit journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has nothing to do with the Defenders. I haven't it started yet, so please don't spoil me!

Matt was in a forest.Around him a light rain was falling, dripping down through leaves and branches.The forest floor was covered with leaves and pine needles, ferns and scattered grasses. The air was strong with the scent of mushrooms. There was a high-pitched keening of insects, and from a nearby stream came the trilling of frogs. 

 

The forest was foreign to a Hell’s Kitchen native like Matt.His dad wasn’t the kind of guy who spent much time relaxing in the woods.Father son time was baseball games, trips to Coney Island, maybe Central Park, and every so often, the art museum, wandering up and down the halls and wondering what was in the artists’ heads. 

 

Once, after his dad was gone, the nuns took the kids to a camp in Connecticut somewhere.Matt had had a bad time, because the cabin was full of dust and mildew, and the meadows were full of pollen, and the cooks were bad, so what should have been a reprieve for his overheated senses, became a hell of allergens, a lumpy bed at night that was no better than a torture chamber, and food he could barely choke down. For Matt, “the woods” was not a place he liked to go. 

 

Foggy had once taken Matt with him on a family trip to “the country” which caused Matt a good deal of concern until he figured out they were going to a reasonably pleasant hotel in the Catskills where generations of Nelsons had whiled away their summers. 

 

This forest, though, was something denser, deeper.The trees were mighty, calm and majestic.Matt could almost hear them drinking deep with their roots, circulating water up to the canopy. Matt couldn’t sense anything human anywhere, which had never happened before.It would have been alarming if it hadn’t been so peaceful. 

 

As Matt listened, he became more aware of where he was, what he was doing.He realized, somehow without much surprise, that he had taken the form of a cat, prowling on padded paws in bluish light between the big trunks of trees. He could see clearly, which didn't surprise him, though everything was tinged with blue.

 

He heard a snuffling sound, and there was Foggy, and Foggy was a bear, a large black bear with tall, tufted, humorous ears, kind eyes, and big paws ending in long claws.Foggy was casually raking through the underbrush and eating whatever he liked the smell of. 

 

Matt didn’t make a sound, he simply walked, tail high with feline dignity, and began to rub along Foggy’s hind legs, making sure to mark Foggy well with the scent glands in his cheeks. 

 

Foggy made a low rumble and dropped down where he was, content to take a nap with Matt right then and there.Matt made a nest with him, curling up inside that magnificent heat, and fell deeper asleep in the quiet blue woods.

 

***

 

Matt opened his eyes and ears and nose, he felt with his body, and someone was coming. 

 

A coyote paced behind a nearby tree, nose and ears alert on one side of the tree and bushy tail down on the other side.The coyote was tall, and black, not tan like the ones Matt remembered from children’s books about the desert southwest. 

 

Following with the coyote was a snowshoe hare in its brown, summer phase. He could see the coyote and hare quite clearly in the forest’s odd blue light.Foggy rumbled beneath him, and Matt could feel that his Guide was relaxed but alert. 

 

The coyote paced closer, the hare following. 

 

Matt made no move.The coyote was beautiful, somehow familiar. 

 

She sat back on her haunches, and the hare hunched next to her, browsing, wide eyes looking all around. 

 

Then the coyote was a woman and Matt was a man. 

 

The woman stretched out her arms, and Matt went closer.The woman’s senses rang in tune with his, stretching out into the forest for miles.This was her territory, or some semblance of it. 

 

“Matthew Michael Murdock,” he heard, though she hadn’t opened her mouth, and she laid a gentle hand against his face.

 

He knew her.He knew her by smell, by the feel of her skin, the sound of her breathing, the beat of her heart that he’d known before he’d known anything else. 

 

“Margaret Brigid Kelly Murdock,” he returned. 

 

“Son,” she said, brimming with love and a wellspring of heartache. 

 

“Mother,” he said, trying not to drown in his own resentment, but not willing to lie. “Why did you leave us?” he whispered, the oldest, first question he’d learned not to ask. 

 

Foggy rumbled in the background, stepping forward as a man to wrap his arms around Matt’s middle, pressing his comforting bulk against Matt’s back. 

 

“I couldn’t stay,” Maggie answered.“I’m not sure I can put it into words.Terry?” 

 

The snoeshoe hare stood up, a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and white in her hair. 

 

“Two things happen when a Sentinel gives birth to another Sentinel,” Matt’s mother’s Guide explained.“First, she feels a terrifying enmity towards that tiny, helpless life, for no other reason that that it will grow up to be a rival Sentinel.Second, she feels an overpowering urge to find a new Territory to call her own.Maggie could have tried to stay, but if she had, she might have been driven insane, especially since she hadn’t found me yet.” 

 

“Dad wasn’t her Guide?” Matt said, his heart breaking all over again. He knew only too well the agony of falling in love with someone who was not destined to be his other half.He knew now how clearly Elektra must have seen that she could never displace Foggy in Matt’s heart, his life, his soul. 

 

“No,” Terry said.“Luckily, or as fate would have it, I was another novice at the same convent where your mother went to put her life back together after she had you.” 

 

“You two are nuns?” Foggy asked, incredulous. 

 

The women glanced at each other with a chuckle. 

 

“No,” Terry said again.“Maggie’s a Sentinel.She tried her best, but she lasted about three months in the convent, long enough to meet me and bust us out of there.We live mostly out of the back of a pickup truck.Our territory is super rural — hundreds of square miles of back woods, nothing like Matt’s handful of city blocks—no offense, kid.” 

 

Matt felt his ears lay back and his tail bristle, even as Foggy ran a soothing hand down his human spine. 

 

“To answer your question, counselor, we’re law enforcement for US Fish and Wildlife,” Terry said to Foggy. 

 

“We kept turning up until they had to hire us,” Maggie added.“No one can figure out why we’re so effective against problem coyotes without poison, guns or traps.” 

 

“It’s cause she is one!” Terry stage whispered. 

 

“Where are we, anyway?”Matt said, looking around.“Isn’t this a dream?” 

 

“It is and it isn’t,” Terry said, effervescent with enthusiasm, a bubble in the voice Matt was beginning to recognize as Guidesplaining mode.“This is the spirit realm, where our animals can relax and be who they are.And where we can meet without infringing on one another’s territory.” 

 

“You know there’s such a thing as a phone call,” Matt said. 

 

“And I’m supposed to say what, sorry I ran off instead of smothering you in your crib?”Maggie said.“Let’s be pen pals?” 

 

“Hush,” Terry said, entangling Maggie’s hand in her own.“Maggie didn’t want to leave you, Matt, but she had to.I know it’s hard to accept. But now that you’re bonded, I think you’ll begin to understand.” 

 

“I needed you,” Matt whispered, “and you weren’t there.” 

 

“I was there,” Maggie answered, “but only in your dreams.” 

 

Matt had shaken off his childish dreams of a sad lady in the woods, a blue coyote….dreams that had ached even as they left him with a ghostly feeling of mournful comfort. 

 

“I remember,” Matt admitted.“I wish somehow I couldhave known it was really you.” 

 

“I wish that too,” Maggie said. 

 

“Just hug, okay? You guys are killing me,” Foggy burst out. 

 

Tentatively Matt stepped toward his mother.Matt was taller, but Maggie was built a lot like him, wiry and strong.She had those same amazing eyes Matt had, that same unruly brown hair, a few shades darker and redder than her Guide’s. 

 

Matt held on to his mother, overwhelmed by emotion.She hadn’t wanted to leave him, she’d been forced to go by something in their shared genetic code.She’d left him the gifts that partially defined who he was — the same gifts that tied him to Foggy, the greatest gift he’d ever be given. 

 

“I’m so glad we found you,” Matt said. 

 

“I know,” Maggie said.“Now maybe we can meet again in person.” 

 

“That would be fantastic!” Foggy said. 

 

“Can you tear him away from the City?” Terry asked Foggy. 

 

“I think I can lay hands on some chloroform….” 

 

***

 

Matt woke up in Foggy’s arms, smiling wide and happier than he had ever really been. 

 

“Foggy, I love you so much,” he said, as Foggy’s breathing shifted into wakefulness. 

 

“Rabbit lady,” Foggy mumbled.“Whuh?Was that real?” 

 

“We found my mom,” Matt said.“We found her!”

 

Forty-five minutes later, Foggy and Matt were in line at their favorite bagel place when Foggy’s phone buzzed.It was Blair. 

 

“So you guys bonded, and Matt found his mom?” Blair gushed. 

 

“Uh, how did you know that?” Foggy asked, befuddled. 

 

“Shamanism! No time to talk, we’re in security at the airport. Jim’s hustling us back to Cascade post-haste, toot sweet. Listen, call us up from time to time.Don’t be strangers!Let us know when you hook up with Matt’s mom i.r.l.Jim’s mom really wants to meet her!” 

 

“What?”

 

“Gotta go!You guys rock!Call if you need anything!” 

 

Blair went out in as much of a whirlwind as he’d come in. 

 

“Wow. So that’s it? What about all the so-called training?”Matt said. 

 

Foggy’s phone buzzed again. 

 

“He just emailed me an attachment.Oh my god.This is his dissertation, the real one.Awesome!” 

 

“I thought that was some kind of horrible invasion of Jim’s privacy,” Matt said. 

 

“It’s really more like a book of exercises on how a Guide works with a Sentinel,” Foggy said, scanning the table of contents. “Oh, I can’t wait to try this one!” 

 

“Foggy,” Matt complained, but secretly, anything Foggy wanted, Matt was more than eager to dish out. 

 

“I’ll text you this evening,” Foggy said, from the sidewalk in front of HCB.“What are your plans for the day?”

 

“Go to my office, try to do some actual work, daydream about kissing you,” Matt said, with his Foggiest of smiles. 

 

Foggy’s heart sped up a little, and Matt had never been happier. 

 

“See you,” Foggy said, and kissed Matt lightly.He went through the big front doors with a spring in his step. 

 

Matt unfolded his cane, and the path to Murdock, Esq., had never seemed quite so smooth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> of course that's not the end! one more chapter. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Foggy: finally together!

Matt and Foggy intended to ease into their new lifestyle.Matt thought he would keep his own place, give Foggy room to breathe in the nice new apartment he had earned through his work at HCB. 

 

Honestly, though, such a setup couldn’t stand after Matt and Foggy acknowledged their bond.Matt couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping unless it was in bed with his Guide.Now that Foggy had let him back in, Matt always caught up with Foggy by bedtime, regardless of which one of them was pulling late hours. Matt sometimes showed up outside HCB to walk Foggy home after a late night, and every so often, Matt appeared on Foggy’s window ledge in the suit.But Matt never stayed out all night without letting Foggy know where he was and what was going on. 

 

Since Matt acknowledged the bond and stopped struggling against his need to be near Foggy, he was astonished at how much easier everything had become. 

 

Calling Foggy in the middle of the day, just to hear his voice for a minute or even less — it centered Matt in a way he had never allowed himself to admit. Kissing Foggy goodbye in the morning and hello again after work — sometimes eating lunch with him when schedules would allow — falling asleep every night in Foggy’s bed — the rhythm of Matt’s days and nights fell into place in a way they hadn’t even back in the day when the two best friends had been roommates.In those days Matt had fought so hard against his dependence on Foggy that he’d never allowed himself to relax and reap the benefits of living in close quarters with his destined Guide.Matt drew a line in the sand that he refused to cross, and as a result, the two of them had suffered so much, so needlessly, for so many years. 

 

Now all that was over.Now, Matt allowed himself to bask in Foggy’s presence.He allowed himself to grin helplessly at all the many wonders of Foggy, his good humor, his brilliance, his corny jokes, even the little habits that Matt had grown used to over the years.Everything about Foggy was a balm to Matt’s overactive senses.The sound of Foggy brushing his teeth or gargling his mouthwash was like the most soothing lullaby to Matt.He never would have imagined it, but it was all true. 

 

In this newfound calm, Matt’s senses had expanded their already uncanny range.His focus, even when Foggy wasn’t present, was unshakeable. Matt’s own heartbeat now was an echo of Foggy’s, grounding him in Foggy’s presence even when Foggy was half a mile away.The scent of Foggy lingering on Matt’s skin, the taste of Foggy sweet in the back of his throat, a strand of Foggy’s hair like a golden thread tying them together — Matt was never alone, not anymore.Foggy was deep inside him, all around him, and finally, Matt was complete. 

 

In dreams, Matt roamed the spirit world with Foggy beside him.Sometimes he met with his mom and the two of them got to know each other.Sometimes, Foggy would quiz Terry and she would tell him all she’d learned about her Sentinel, and Foggy would shake his head at how much Maggie and Matt were alike.Sometimes the four of them would simply rest, communing together in the strange blue realm that was undeniably home. 

 

From time to time Blair contacted them, keeping tabs on how things were going. Blair liked to send long, stream of thought emails.But sometimes he showed up when Maggie’s forest tangled into a jungle, a wolf with a sleek black panther stalking behind him in the shadows, always nearby. 

 

Life in Hell’s Kitchen would never be simple.Crime was always lurking in New York City; some crazy syndicate would rear their ugly heads and Matt would need to put on the suit and do his part to stop them.But Matt had found he was no longer alone.Foggy, at HCB, was assigned to Jessica Jones, a woman with uncanny strength who was also a detective with a nose for trouble.Luke Cage had appeared in Harlem, unbreakable and stalwart, moral compass as unshakeable as his stance.The most unlikely new ally was Danny Rand, the billionaire kid who’d disappeared more than a decade earlier, now back in New York a sworn enemy of the Hand, and sporting a mystical Fist he’d won from a dragon.Claire Temple, who’d tried to leave Matt and his problems behind, was still in the middle of everything, doing her best to keep her wild friends grounded in reality.  Danny’s girlfriend Colleen Wing was a samurai fighter in her own right, trained by the Hand before she’d understood who they really were. Matt was no longer alone in his fight to protect the City, with all these allies and more ready to stand as defenders when ordinary means were not quite enough.Matt had a hard time at first, joining forces, learning to trust, but Foggy helped him through it.Matt trusted Claire, and soon enough, Colleen, Danny, Luke and even Jessica slipped into place as part of Matt’s trusted inner circle.If and when the Hand resurfaced in New York, Matt and his new friends would be ready. 

 

Most of Matt’s days now were spent preparing pro bono cases.With Hogarth’s blessing, Foggy passed clients over to Matt who couldn’t afford to pay or for whom winning would be a long shot.Matt did his best to help them, and discovered the satisfaction of learning that his best was often plenty good enough. Even Hogarth was impressed with Matt’s win rate, but she never made the offer to Matt she’d made to Foggy, and that was okay with all of them. 

 

Matt enjoyed waiting for Foggy to come home in the evenings.Matt didn’t cook very elaborate meals, but he knew how to prepare a simple meal, like meatloaf and mashed potatoes, that would make Foggy smile. It wasn’t long before they let Matt’s apartment go.He didn’t need it anymore.He had no more secrets, and everything he wanted in life was wherever Foggy made a home for them both. 

 

“What is that delicious smell?” Foggy asked, before he was even though the door. 

 

Matt had made a lasagna, entirely from scratch, and it was keeping warm in the oven, with garlic bread, a simple salad, and the perfect bottle of red. 

 

“I will be eating this all week.The other partners will be green with envy!” Foggy declared as he wiped off his plate with his last bite of bread. 

 

“I thought their main dish was human misery,” Matt said. 

 

“That’s just Hogarth,” Foggy said.“The others still require material nourishment.”

 

“I could live off the air you breathe,” Matt said, with a grin.“I lost my taste for misery.Now all I want is the exhalations of a contented Foggy Nelson.”

 

“Another glass of wine, my friend!” Foggy said, “and you will have heady notes of Foggy to your heart’s delight.” 

 

“So true,” Matt said, pouring. 

 

“It’s so cool how you can hear when the glass is full,” Foggy said as Matt topped him off. 

 

“It really is,” Matt agreed. 

 

“What else can you hear?” Foggy asked. 

 

“I can hear that your tummy is full of lasagna and not quite too much bread,” Matt said.“I can hear how relaxed you feel as you lean back in your chair.I can hear the way your hair shakes, silky and soft, as you sip your glass of wine, and I can hear you savor the wine in your mouth before you swallow…” 

 

“All that used to freak me out,” Foggy noted, placidly.

 

“It wasn’t that detailed before,” Matt said. 

 

“But I love it now. I love it, Matt, the way you can hear all the way inside of me.” 

 

“I love it too,” Matt said.“I love you, every infinitesimal bit of you, down to the atoms.” 

 

“Can you really sense me down to the atoms?” Foggy wondered. 

 

“Beyond,” Matt claimed, grandly; “I’ve seen the plan of your DNA — at least in the spirit realm.” Some of Matt’s meditations across the border into the other realm had startled even Blair. 

 

“I don’t know,” Foggy said, skeptical.“How can we know if you are really sensing or just hallucinating with some of this.Our DNA dancing? Come on.” 

 

“Hey, I don’t tell my senses what to sense.I’m just the messenger.” 

 

“What are you sensing now?” 

 

“I’m sensing that you are ready to sit on the couch for an episode of something mindless, and then I’ll take you to bed.” 

 

“We can go straight to the bed, if you want.” 

 

“I do!I always want.” 

 

“You have no idea, Matt, how great it is to hear you say that, out loud, and mostly guilt free!” 

 

“I’m sorry, Foggy; too much guilt….” 

 

“Nope!No, no backsliding. Bedtime!” 

 

Foggy led Matt by the hand to their bed.They had even nicer silk sheets than Matt used to have. 

 

“Let me take care of you, Matt,” Foggy said. 

 

It had been an easy few weeks.Nothing on Matt was broken or torn.Foggy kissed him back onto the bed and Matt went easily, sinking into the luxurious feeling of being surrounded by Foggy in every sense. 

 

Foggy took off their clothes and carelessly tossed them to the floor.“To think I tried so hard to keep things off the floor for you!” 

 

“It is a lot easier…” 

 

“You can pick things up in the morning, mister sets his own hours!” 

 

Naked, Matt was already in paradise.Silk sheets soft against his back, Foggy’s delectable skin soothing against his own, Foggy’s hair tickling his neck, and the scent of Foggy everywhere. 

 

Matt could hardly keep it together as Foggy began to kiss him. 

 

“Just hold your wrists together, here, and let me take care of you,” Foggy said. He’d discovered just how much Matt liked it when he took over.Matt lay back and Foggy did the rest.Matt let go, moaning and arching toward Foggy, begging with his body and wordless pleas, craving whatever Foggy had to offer.There was nothing in the world for Matt but Foggy.All those horrible nights, tossing and turning in that desolate apartment, listening to the sounds of torment all around him — all that was gone.Now there was nothing but Foggy, and it was bliss. 

 

“Foggy, Foggy!” Matt babbled, but he wasn’t embarrassed, because it made Foggy happy when he drove Matt wild. 

 

“I love you, Matt,”Foggy said.“You’re so good, so perfect for me, Matty.So good!” 

 

Foggy was around him, over him, in him, taking him higher and higher, till he fell to pieces, crying Foggy’s name, shattered and never so complete. 

 

Matt spent his nights with his nose in Foggy’s hair, Foggy’s calm heartbeat filling his ears, keeping the suffering world at bay until they were ready to face it, on their own terms, together. 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
